Point of View

"Witness" is told from the first-person perspective of the narrator, Silas. Silas is a man who, in his post-graduate life, is searching for a job as a professor and living with his older sister in her apartment. The story's point of view is unique in that the first-person narrator is not necessarily the main character. One could argue that the true main character of the story is Bernice, as she consumes Silas's thoughts through her relationship with Dove and her increasingly bizarre behavior. Even Silas himself admits that Bernice has a more pronounced presence than he does. "The truth was," he says, "I found my sister exhausting, the way she could crowd you out of your life with the enormity of her own" (4). Here, Silas is critical of what he interprets as his sister's selfish behavior. However, this comment also becomes an explanation for the...